505 Games Takes Over Development Duties on Laser League from Roll7

In a blog post on the studio’s official website, Roll7 announced that they are no longer working on Laser League, and have handed off future development duties to publisher 505 Games.

Roll7, which put themselves on the map with the OlliOlli series and Not a Hero, has spent the past few years working on Laser League, a futuristic multiplayer game centered around lasers, as the title suggests. After being revealed last June, the game had several alphas and finally hit Early Access on PC in February. Unfortunately, the game didn’t catch on as much as the developers hoped, so development plans were reshuffled and the game came out of Early Access and hit consoles in May.

The studio is no longer working on Laser League as of today, but the developers there did say that they “can’t wait to see where Laser League goes next with 505 Games at the helm,” so it doesn’t seem like support for the game will be dying down much after this transition. They also thanked the game’s pre-release testers and the core publishing team and 505, who has worked on the game with Roll7 for the past three years.

Making multiplayer titles in incredibly arduous no matter the team size, and it looks like Laser League’s development seems to have taken a bit of a toll on Roll7. While it doesn’t seem like the developer is in dire straits right now, the post does mention that the studio is “taking some time to reflect and re-energize” before hopping into a new project.

505 Games also discussed this decision from their perspective. Senior Community Manager Antonela Pounder explained that Roll7, which was new to multiplayer title development, did run into some problems with Laser League. The game is reliant on high-player counts and decent ping times due to its fast-paced nature, and the they sometimes struggled managing both. Of course, 505 worked with the team to solve these problems, but this resulted in players being segregated by region and a lack of cross-play, which was initially planned.

In recent months, 505 Games claims that they have focused on creating strategies to bring in tons of new players at once instead of building up a smaller community over time, and this has seemed to work somewhat. Now that 505 Games has complete control of development, they are going to continue the aforementioned initiatives, but also plan on finally adding cross-play to Laser League. If everything lines up, the publisher believes Laser League will have the reach and funds to hit other platforms like Nintendo Switch.

Only time will tell what this development shift truly means for Laser League and Roll7, but DualShockers will be sure to keep you updated what happens next to the PC, PS4, and Xbox One title.